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Trumbull Children Services committee working to educate on health effects of adverse childhood experiences
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The director of Trumbull County Children Services says a yearslong project focused on the impact of trauma on children could revolutionize the approach his agency takes to helping children and families.
A study undertaken in 1995 and published in 1998 by the nonprofit health care provider Kaiser Permanente and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that 52 percent of 17,000 middle-class San Diego-area patients had experienced at least one of 10 types of adverse childhood experiences, including emotional or physical abuse or a household member being an alcoholic or drug user.
The study showed that there was a “profound relationship between adverse childhood experiences” and health risks, diseases, sexual behavior, disability and health care costs years later, according to the 2010 book “The Impact of Early-Life Trauma on Health and Disease.”
The study linked bad childhood experiences with the leading causes of death and disability in the United States: cardiovascular disease, chronic lung disease, chronic liver disease, depression and other forms of mental illness, obesity, smoking and alcohol and drug abuse.
“The message is you’re more likely than not to be exposed to an adverse experience,” said Tim Schaffner, executive director of Trumbull County Children Services.
Brain development is affected by adverse experiences, and understanding these effects can help child welfare workers, teachers and others better manage these effects, Schaffner said.
“Our goal is to broaden the understanding of why kids do what they do and to develop effective interactions in the classroom and for mental-health therapies,” Schaffner said.
“This is why your kids do what they do,” he said. “They’re not just bad kids. They are responding to the environment.”
The Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services says early neglect and trauma “can cross every area of children’s lives, negatively affecting their capacity to learn basic self-regulatory skills, develop a moral sense, manage a formal educational environment and make close, trusting relationships.”
The Westerville school district in Franklin County has been a leader in providing trauma-informed care, helping children who have had bad experiences cope, Schaffner said.
Certain exercises that involve repetition, such as yoga or jogging, can help children who have experienced trauma focus beyond the stress and anxiety they carry with them, Schaffner said.
In Trumbull County, half of teachers have had training in trauma-informed care, Schaffner said.
The categories of adverse childhood experiences identified in the study were emotional abuse; physical abuse; sexual abuse; mother being treated violently; a household member being an alcoholic or drug user; a household member being imprisoned; a household member being chronically depressed, suicidal, mentally ill or in a psychiatric hospital; not being raised by both biological parents; being physically neglected or being emotionally neglected; and death of a parent.
Trumbull County Children Services and the Family and Children First Council created the Trauma Informed Care Steering Committee in 2013 to study and implement Trauma Informed Care concepts.
The committee recently wrote a “charter” that identifies some of its goals.
They include having trauma-informed care be included in the curriculum at Youngstown State University for the education, counseling and social-work programs; identifying a local pilot school where student-regulation techniques can be used; increasing community awareness of the effects of adverse childhood experiences; visiting Westerville schools to learn more about regulating activities; and establishing a relationship with a local university to develop a way to evaluate the committee’s work.